Eduardo Munoz/ReutersIn April 2012, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did the unthinkable. With the company about to begin its IPO roadshow, Zuckerberg made a surprise acquisition of a 2-year old photo-sharing app called Instagram.

Instagram, the photo-sharing service owned by Facebook, could be worth a whopping $35 billion, according to a new estimate by a Wall Street analyst.
Citi’s Mark May issued a new valuation estimate for the popular app, far above the bank’s prior $19 billion valuation, a loftier view on the asset that May attributed to Instagram’s announcement last week that it had reached more than 300 million total users.

Instagram, the photo-sharing service owned by Facebook, could be worth a whopping $35 billion, according to a new estimate by a Wall Street analyst.
Citi’s Mark May issued a new valuation estimate for the popular app, far above the bank’s prior $19 billion valuation, a loftier view on the asset that May attributed to Instagram’s announcement last week that it had reached more than 300 million total users.

Nick Bilton’s column about the Instagram fairness hearing is annoying on a number of levels. When I mentioned one of them this morning, Dave Winer asked for “a brief post” explaining a bit more. OK then!

By Jacob Steinberg:Finally the Federal Trade Commission gave Facebook (FB) an "ok" to buy Instagram. Initially, the cost of the deal for Facebook was $300 million cash and 23 million shares of Facebook. At the time of the deal, 23 million Facebook shares were worth $700 million, bringing the deal to $1 billion.